Public Transit As A Sacred Space 

Good morning. For my reflection today I’m going to be talking about public transit as a sacred space. Not too many people know this about me but over the past few years I’ve developed kind of a nerdy sort of passion for public transit. 

Although I might not be obsessed quite to the extent of the character Randy played in the musical he was in last month, I have spent a lot of time looking at transit system maps, figuring out how bus routes work together, and I enjoy using and experiencing different forms of public transportation whenever I have the chance.

Ever since I got a student transit pass when I started university, Grand River Transit has been my primary method of transportation around this area, and I’ve also used GO, or Greyhound, or Ontario Northland buses for trips around Ontario more recently. 

As my family can attest to, the launch day of the new ION light rail transit system was a day I’d been eagerly awaiting for a number of years, and on June 21st I got to Fairway station at 8am and stood in line for about four hours to make sure I could secure a spot on the first ION train with passengers to travel the whole route. 

Since the fall I’ve also been on a resident advisory committee for Metrolinx which is the publicly-funded provincial organization that runs GO transit which meets every few months at Union Station in Toronto to review different aspects of their 2041 transit plan.

I can’t say exactly how this interest started but I think it might have to do with having very positive experiences related to public transit in my childhood. 

Whenever we go to visit my dad’s family in Vancouver we often get around the city by taking the buses, and SkyTrain, and sometimes even the SeaBus to get to North Vancouver, so I have a lot of good memories of being with my cousins, or uncles and aunts, or grandparents on public transit on the way to fun places like Stanley Park, or Gastown, or Lonsdale Quay, or the Olympic events and festivities in downtown in 2010. 

Public transit has often been part of trips to Blue Jays games, or museums, or other family day trips in Toronto as well.

So now you know a bit about my interest in public transit but what about it makes it a sacred space? 

Well another thing I like about taking public transit is that it allows your mind to be completely free throughout the experience, since you don’t have to focus on the road or worry about the stresses of driving in traffic. Unless I’m reading a book, listening to music, or sleeping which I sometimes try to do if I have an early-morning class, I usually use this time to just look out the window of the bus or train and reflect on my day, or sort through the thoughts running through my head so I don’t even mind that it takes a bit longer than driving or that I have to wait a while sometimes at the stops.  

These thoughts usually just start out being about whatever, but often times after sitting on the bus or train just letting my mind wander for a while I’ll start to think about God and how He is present with me or about stories or lessons from Jesus that apply to whatever I’m feeling or thinking about. Then sometimes I might start having a silent conversation or prayer with him.

​As I think is the norm at the stage of life I’m at, these past few years have been a time of a lot of personal growth and new experiences so I can think of many scenarios over the past few years where I’ve felt God’s presence as I’ve worked through some of these things as I’ve been sitting and staring out the window of a bus.  

Preparing for the work or school day ahead, gaining inspiration for a school assignment or motivation for an exam, deciding on whether to change my university program, figuring out how I’m going to formulate my words for a job interview or presentation, sorting through emotional pain from relationship issues, recovering from the over-stimulating environment of a 200-person university student house party at 1 am, contemplating the meaning of life and my identity; these are the kinds of things I’ve had conversations with God about while riding public transit these past few years.

With public transit obviously being a public place, a place that lots of people use, people from a variety of ages, and ethnicities, and socioeconomic statuses there are also some more extroverted aspects of the public transit experience that I’ve found sacredness in. As Linden alluded to in sharing time a few weeks ago, during that first week that ION was running when it was free to ride, it was awesome to see so many people from the community coming together with excitement to check it out and it seemed like everyone was just striking up conversations with whoever was sitting beside them on the trains.

​The spontaneous interactions that can often arise from taking public transit, even though they’re not usually any more spiritual or holy in terms of the content of conversation, I actually find very sacred. 

Often one minute you’re just sitting there minding your business not thinking of the people around you as anything more than fellow commuters, then the next minute either you recognize a familiar face or you drop your water bottle and the person beside you picks it up and you end up catching up with someone you haven’t seen in years, or you get to know someone better that you might not have otherwise, or you get to listen to the life story of a stranger for an hour. 

In any case, relationship is what God is all about and as we heard earlier Jesus is with us whenever we gather with two or three in his name even if it’s on a bus.

So hopefully by now you have an idea of how I came to the decision to talk about public transit when I was asked to reflect on a sacred space. Really the purpose of this reflection though wasn’t about convincing you that public transit is a good thing, or why it should be considered a sacred space - some of the things I described don’t happen exclusively on public transit, this is just one place in particular that came to mind. Moreso it was about reinforcing the idea that sacred spaces can exist in our everyday lives, at places and times we often don’t think about in these terms.

There’s a theory I find interesting about the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection that can actually be used to justify this idea. The theory is that by allowing himself to be killed and by ascending to heaven after his resurrection from death, instead of God’s presence and power being exclusively confined to one place on Earth in Jesus’ human body, it became available to anyone who believes in him and seeks it out wherever in the world they are through the Holy Spirit he left behind.

So a challenge I have for myself and for all of you in this week going forward is to be more aware, to find more ways to notice how God is present, to find more sacredness in everyday spaces, to allow us to be more open to the strength, courage, hope, and love the Spirit can provide us with. 

And make sure to keep in mind that even if you don’t ride the ION, God always has his eye on you.